Recent Opinions

The world is full of unsolved problems. It is also full of problems for which solutions already exist, if we only leverage them. When we slow down for a minute, consider the available options, and more carefully assess the consequences of various modes of action, we have a better chance of directing our efforts where they ought to go–for the good of ourselves and the issues we face.

Matthew Cohen ’18 and Johnathan Bowes ’15 debate whether Puerto Rico should become the 51st state in the United States. Cohen urges us to question the previous votes in Puerto Rico as well as its tremendous debt while Bowes argues the US should respect the will of Puerto Ricans in whatever they choose.

Mammoth discovery team discusses Castroville fossils

“Most of us have dreamt as a kid–if we’re being honest–of finding a mammoth,” said anthropologist Timothy King ‘04 Ph.D. ‘06 to artichoke farmers Ryan and Martin Jefferson onstage at Cubberley Auditorium Thursday evening. “And what’s wonderful is that you guys did find it and you shared it with all of us.”

King is part of an extensive team that has uncovered about 30 to 40 percent of a Columbian mammoth found in Castroville, Calif., in Dec. 2010 by the Jefferson brothers. The brothers discovered the fossil in the fields of their farm after they found a strange rock that Martin Jefferson said he recognized as a mammoth tooth.

(IAN GARCIA-DOTY/The Stanford Daily)

Sponsored by Stanford Continuing Studies, King and the Jeffersons came to Stanford to present on “The Castroville Mammoth Project,” along with site director Daniel Cearley and project illustrator Joshua Ballze.

Martin Jefferson said that after discovering the tooth, he contacted a friend working for the Natural Resources Conversation Service to begin bringing in people who would know what to do. It was his landlord’s daughter, however, who put him in touch with California State Parks archaeologist Mark Hylkema, who is the team project director. Hylkema then assembled a team to form the Castroville Mammoth Project.

The team consists of faculty and staff from multiple schools, including Stanford, Foothill College, Santa Clara University, UCLA, UC-Santa Cruz, Ohio University and others.

“This was a really good experience and opportunity for our students,” King said. “We said, ‘Hey listen, would you like to go on an excavation for a number of months? We can’t pay you anything, but you get to come home after the weekend and when friends are like, “Oh, yeah, you know, I saw a movie and I went to the golf course, what did you do this weekend?” it’s like, “Yeah, I dug up a mammoth.”’”

The Castroville Mammoth Project has no funding, however, King said.

“We’re not working on a grant or anything,” King said, “All of this has been done pro bono. That is, all of the labor is for free. We’re doing it because we believe in it.”

A project of this size, however, does run into some expenses, King said. One such example would be the radio-carbon dating done on the uncovered bones.

King said that friends and colleagues carried out the fossil dating. The Jeffersons also made a few donations. Other expenses came out of team members’ own pockets.

During his lecture, King discussed the discovery of strands of hair among the bones. He said that if they turn out to be the hair of the mammoth, they will be the only known samples of Columbian mammoth hair.

Ballze also said there are two more known sites on the Jeffersons’ 178-acre farm that are producing bones and fossils.

On stage, King brought up the members of what he calls “the most exclusive club in the Bay Area,” the Mammoth Hunter Society. In addition to the Jefferson brothers, Roger Castillo and Ian Butler, who have each discovered a mammoth, represented members of the group.

In 2005, Castillo found a juvenile Columbian mammoth along the Guadalupe River that is now on display in the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose. Butler is the most recent member of the society, having found the remains of an adult Columbian mammoth in Pacifica in fall 2011.

The members said they are excited to be part of the club.

“Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I think, ‘Oh that was a good dream,’” Castillo said. “And then I realize that it really happened.”

“It makes me wish I could change my daily job duties,” Martin Jefferson said about his family’s artichoke fields potentially holding more Ice Age animals. “Looking for fossils instead of looking at the fields.”

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Carrying forward the interest in contemplation both at Windhover and during Contemplation by Design week, the Office for Religious life and HIP are collaborating to offer a labyrinth walking fundamentals [...]

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Carrying forward the interest in contemplation both at Windhover and during Contemplation by Design week, the Office for Religious life and HIP are collaborating to offer a labyrinth walking fundamentals workshop. This 2-session program will provide you with knowledge of the rich history and stress reduction and resilience-building benefits of the contemplative practice of labyrinth walking. Each session will begin in the classroom followed by a practicum of walking the Windhover labyrinth. Class will be held rain or shine. Please dress accordingly. Please note: registration required for this free class.

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COMFORT WOMEN WANTED brings to light the memory of 200,000 young women, referred to as “comfort women,” who were systematically exploited as sex slaves in Asia during World War II, and increases awareness of sexual violence against women during wartime. It is based on interviews with Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Filipino, and Dutch “comfort women” survivors and a former Japanese soldier from WWII conducted by the filmmaker, Chang-Jin Lee, a Korean-born visual artist from New York City.

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We are a social action VSO and bake challah bread on Thursdays at Hillel in the back building (across from the Haas Center). The proceeds this week go to MAZON: [...]

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We are a social action VSO and bake challah bread on Thursdays at Hillel in the back building (across from the Haas Center). The proceeds this week go to MAZON: a national non-profit working to end hunger among all faiths and backgrounds. We work with a variety of groups around campus, including social action groups, interfaith groups, and Greek life. Everyone is welcome to come join us in making challah.

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The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics announces the second mini-course by Stanford physics faculty on recent fundamental advances in theoretical physics. The winter quarter's lectures will be by Professor Sean [...]

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The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics announces the second mini-course by Stanford physics faculty on recent fundamental advances in theoretical physics. The winter quarter’s lectures will be by Professor Sean Hartnoll.

Black holes have the remarkable property of irreversibility: if you fall into a black hole you can’t get out (classically). This immediately suggested a connection with the other famous irreversibility in physics: the law of increase of entropy. Since the 70s, this connection between black holes and thermodynamic systems has been fleshed out in increasing detail and has lead to surprising conclusions. I will give an introduction to a recent body of work showing how black holes can in fact be used to shed light on exotic materials of interest in condensed matter physics, including the still-not-understood high temperature superconductors.

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THE LADY ONSTAGE explores the life and work of Olga Knipper, a name unfamiliar to most, but perhaps best known as “Chekhov’s wife”. Olga was a key creative genius in [...]

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THE LADY ONSTAGE explores the life and work of Olga Knipper, a name unfamiliar to most, but perhaps best known as “Chekhov’s wife”. Olga was a key creative genius in the history of modern theatre; she was not only the originator of the leading female roles in Chekhov’s four major plays, but also became the de facto chief representative of the Moscow Art Theater when they toured the United States. THE LADY ONSTAGE takes us into the psyche of an actress at the moment when theater changed forever, giving us an inside perspective on the radical choices artists make in the name of Art and Love.

March’s Rough Reading presents an intimate reading of Erin Bregman’s new play in early draft form, offering audiences a rare opportunity to engage directly with the artistic process of bringing a play to life. Produced by Playwrights Foundation in partnership with the National Center for New Plays at Stanford.